


sic itur ad astra

by orphan_account



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Depression, M/M, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, big tw for this one boys, kind of graphic suicide attempt, this is just really sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 11:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18281846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I’m sorry you feel the way you do,” James says. “And I’m sorry I can’t make it better for you.”“Nothings going to make anything better for me,” Alex replies. “But I love you, I love you so much.”





	sic itur ad astra

“James?” Alex says, voice hitting the silent night like a warm breath against cold air. The light from the full moon shines in through the bedroom window, falling pale and ghostly onto the bed. “James?” He repeats it, poking James’ shoulder. James stirs in his sleep, his eyes flutter open halfway. 

“Hm?” He says. 

“I’m afraid,” Alex says, he sounds like a child, even to himself, he feels his face flush.

“What are you afraid of, darling?” James asks, propping himself up on his elbow, furrowing his brow in concern. 

“Dunno,” he whispers. “Everything. Nothing.” He thinks about it for a second. “Being alone.” 

“I’m right here,” James says. 

“Yeah,” Alex says, turning away. “I know.” He can’t put the feeling into words, the ever encroaching darkness. The constant threat of the brutal, silent, cold place hanging at the back of Alex’s mind. “I just–“ 

“Let’s go somewhere,” James says decisively. 

“It’s three in the morning James,” Alex tells him. He shrugs. 

“There’s always something open. Come on,” he throws the blanket off of them and climbs out of bed, cramming his feet clumsily into his sneakers. Alex watches him with wide eyes. “Come on, Alex,” he repeats. Alex does as he’s told, sliding his own shoes on and throwing on a jacket. 

They walk hand in hand down the sidewalk, traffic creeps by on the road. A disheveled man in a business suit lets his gaze linger on their hands. Alex doesn’t know what to say. 

“There are no stars in the city,” James remarks, looking up. “I’ve lived here for years and it still surprises me.” 

“Stars are lonely things,” Alex says. 

“I don’t think so,” James frowns “heard of binary star systems?” 

“What’s that?” Alex asks.

“Two stars orbiting the same point,” he explains. “Forever connected.” 

“Oh,” Alex says quietly. They walk in silence for a minute. “Where are we going?” Alex looks over at James. 

“I don’t know.” 

…

“Let’s get away,” James suggests. Alex is sitting on the couch under a blanket, a sitcom playing on the television. His eyes look glassy, like he’s not really seeing anything. 

“Where’s there to get away to?” Alex asks. “Everywhere is the same.” James heart tightens, his stomach turns with fear. Alex is slowly being eaten by this black hole, and he doesn’t know how to pull him out.

“The sea, what about the sea?” James suggests.

“It’s November,” Alex says. 

“The beach won’t be crowded,” James says. 

“If it will make you happy,” Alex says. That’s not not the point, James doesn’t say. 

So, they take a trip to a little seaside town. They wander down the quiet streets, peering in shop windows, slowly making their way to the beach. The day is cold and the wind is harsh, growing harsher as they get closer to the ocean. 

James just feels empty. Alex doesn’t want to talk to him and his hand feels cold and lifeless. They sit in the sand and watch the waves roll in as the wind rips past them. James can smell the salt in the air, he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. 

The sky overhead is grey. November grey. 

“What do you think happens to us when we die?” Alex asks. James’ eyes snap open. His heart stutters and then begins to race. 

“Why do you ask?” He struggles to keep his voice casual, measured. Alex shrugs. “I–I’ve got no idea Alex.” 

“I hope we’re just dead,” Alex says. “I hope there’s no afterlife, no reincarnation, nothing.” James wants to throw up. 

“Doesn’t that scare you? All that darkness, forever?” 

“You don’t get it,” Alex says sounding frustrated. “It wouldn’t be darkness, it wouldn’t be anything. What do you hope happens?” 

“I hope...” James takes a minute. “I hope we‘re reborn as stars.” 

“That’s stupid,” Alex says. James suddenly feels defeated, unsure of why he’d suggested this trip. “But if it wasn’t,” Alex says hesitantly. “Do you think we’d be a binary star system, like you told me about?” James looks over at him, stares for a minute, pushes him back into the sand and kisses him hard. 

“Yeah,” He says in a quivering voice, once they’ve broken apart. Alex swallows hard and nods. 

… 

They stay on the beach for a long time, James kisses Alex until his mouth is bruised and swollen. When they stop James lies back in the sand and closes his eyes. 

Alex stares out at the sea and suddenly, without thinking stand ups and makes his way towards the water, he pries his shoes off, stuffs his socks into them and rolls up his sweatpants. The water is bitingly cold, the kind of cold that aches. 

He walks out until the water is to his knees, soaking through the fabric of his pants. Alex pauses, and thinks for a minute about the deepest, darkest parts of the ocean. How no one has ever been there, how no one could survive there. The thought makes him feel charged with electricity. He shudders. 

Alex takes another step forward and then another and then he hears a voice, almost lost in the brutal wind. 

“Alex!” He turns and sees James fast approaching. “Alex what are you doing?” 

“I was just wading in,” he says. “I was just wading.” 

“Come back,” James begs. The sky is getting dark. Alex sighs and wades back towards the dry sand.

James grabs him as soon as he’s and arms reach and holds him tightly to his chest. 

“You were out so deep,” James says. 

“It’s okay,” Alex says. “It’s fine.” 

They stay the night at a little motel near the beach, it’s the only lodging open this time of year. Alex takes a long shower in the grubby bathroom, letting the hot water pour over him until it runs cold.

He gets dressed and settles on to the bed next to James. James turns to him, and grabs one on his hands.

“I love you so much,” James says. “You know... if something happened to you... if you hurt yourself I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.” Alex swallows hard, he nods. 

“Don’t worry about me,” he says quietly. “You don’t have to worry about me.” He kisses James softly on the cheek. 

…

When they get back it’s storming in London, torrents of rain beating down on the city, all the pavement is slick. The water streaming sown windows of their apartment distorts the lights of the nearby buildings. Alex settles into the couch, turns out the light and turns on the television. 

James watches him for a minute. Everything with Alex is just grey, dull and dreary these days. He keeps telling himself it will pass, but it’s been like this for months. He goes to the kitchen and pours himself a drink. He can’t stand to be in the same room as Alex at the moment, it all feels so heavy. Being with Alex feels like holding up the sky. 

He doesn’t turn the kitchen light on, just downs drink after drink in the dark. The whole apartment is dark. Around the fourth drink it all becomes too much, he breaks down, sobbing into his hands, his body shaking. 

“James?” Comes a quiet voice from the doorway. “What’s wrong?” James looks at Alex through his tears. 

“Fuck, Alex,” he says, voice choked. “What am I going to do with you?” Alex stares like a deer caught in headlights. “Come here,” James commands. Alex obeys, approaching slowly. He kneels on the floor in front of James and lays his head down in his lap. 

“I’m sorry,” Alex says quietly. James threads his fingers through Alex’s hair. 

“You make me so sad sometimes,” he says, he’d never say it sober, not ever. “What am I going to do with you?” He sees Alex’s eyes shining with tears. 

“I wish I could be better for you,” he says. “But this is how I am. You should leave me James, you deserve someone who’s going to make you happy.” 

“I’m not going to leave you Alex,” James says. “God, you know I’m not.“ 

“I want you to be happy,” Alex says, James wipes a tear off Alex’s face.

“You don’t get it,” James says emphatically. “I’m never going to be happy with out you.”

“I think you could be,” Alex says. “I think you would be. . Get out now, James, because right now we’re headed for mutual annihilation.” 

“What does that mean?” James demands, tugging at Alex’s hair. Alex doesn’t answer. “What does that mean?” 

… 

 

Alex sleeps on the couch that night and wakes up to James shaking his shoulder, he opens his eyes. James is kneeling on the floor beside him. 

“I’m going to uni now, okay?” He says. 

“Okay,” Alex says. He feels hollow, gutted after last night. 

“I’m really sorry,” James says. “I was drunk and I said some... some really terrible shit to you.” 

“It’s okay,” Alex assures him. “It’s okay.” 

“I love you so much,” he says. 

“Yeah...” Alex says weakly. “I love you too.” 

“I’ll see you when I get home and then we’ll talk okay?” Alex nods. He’s made up his mind by now, this is all just a performance for James’ sake. He knows what he’s got to do. He kisses James softly. 

He doesn’t wait five minutes after James has left, he gets off the couch and heads to the bathroom. The bathroom is all white, white tiles and white walls and white towels hanging on a rack. It makes Alex think of a hospital. He takes a minute to rifle through the medicine cabinet, he finds a pack of razor blades. 

He thinks, as he picks one up with trembling fingers, of what James has said in the motel that night. “If you hurt yourself I wouldn’t be able to live with myself,” but then he remembers last night, and the realization he’d had. No matter what he said James was never going to be happy with him. 

He takes a deep breath and drags the blade across the pale, delicate skin of his wrist, digging in hard and deep, the pain stings. Alex winces and watches as the blood beads. Is it deep enough? How will he know, he tries again, making three deep cuts on each wrist. There’s blood streaming down both of his arms now, dripping onto the floor. Should he have run a bath? That’s what people do, isn’t it? 

His head spins, he sits down on the floor and hopes he’s done enough. Then there’s a noise from out in the apartment, the door opening, footsteps. 

... 

James realizes he’s forgotten his phone about five minutes after leaving the apartment, he rushes back to find it. 

When he opens the door he’s half surprised that Alex isn’t still laying on the couch. Suddenly, a nauseated, uneasy feeling overcomes him. 

“Alex?” He calls into the apartment. There’s no answer. James checks the kitchen and the bedroom, but they’re both empty. He knocks on the bathroom door, there’s no noise from inside so he opens it. His stomach drops. 

Alex is sitting on the floor, covered in blood. Vivid, red blood slick and gleaming against his pale arms, staining his shirt, small pools on the white tile. 

He can’t breathe, doesn’t know what to do. It takes him a minute to start back to life and as soon as he does he says. 

“Where’s your phone?” 

“I-“ 

“Where’s your fucking phone?” 

“Coffee table,” Alex manages. James rushes to find it and with shaking hands dials 999. The operator calmly asks him about his emergency.

“I think... I think my friend tried to kill himself, he’s all bloody and he’s just sitting on the floor.” He tries his best to clear his head and answer all of her questions. As soon as he gets off the phone he hurried back to the bathroom, and wraps a hand towel tightly around each of Alex’s wrists. 

“It’ll stain,” he mumbles. “They’ll be ruined.” James thinks he might throw up. There’s so much blood. Alex’s eyes are half lidded, he looks and sounds drowsy. 

“What have you done?” James asks. “What the fuck have you done?” 

“Did you call 999?” Alex asks. 

“Yeah,” James whispers hoarsely. 

“Fuck,” Alex mutters. “They’re going to put me on suicide watch now, you know.” 

“Good,” James says fiercely. “You–fuck, you need help.” 

“I don’t need help. I need to die,” Alex says, suddenly weepy. “Why can’t you just let me die?” James slams his fist hard into the mirror over the sink, hard enough to send a web of cracks through the glass. Suddenly he’s crying and Alex is crying too, everything is blurry through the tears. “I want to die.” Alex repeats over and over again.

EMTs arrive eventually and Alex is taken to the ER where they stitch him up. James doesn’t feel like he’s in his own body any more, he’s just vaguely hovering at the edge of the scene. 

“The cuts weren’t terribly deep,” a doctor explains to James. 

“Guess I’m even bad at killing myself, huh?” Alex says flatly. James tenses and his eyes harden. 

“He’s going to be fine, physically at least. He doesn’t need to spend the night here, but legally he’s required to spend the next 48 hours on suicide watch in the psychiatric ward.” 

“Okay,” James says. “Okay.” 

… 

They take Alex’s shoelaces and give him a thin sickly green hospital gown, the room he stays in is white as the bathroom. His wrists feel sore. He eats dinner in the cafeteria, the food is tasteless and the air smells like death, thinly covered with the sterile scent or antiseptic. 

Around him, psych patients chatter. Some of their conversations seem almost normal, but next to Alex a man mutters to himself and a woman sobs over her tray of food. He wishes he was dead. 

He can’t sleep that night, in the narrow, uncomfortable hospital bed he spends all night wishing he was dead. He’d been stupid. He should’ve waited another hour, he should’ve taken pills or stepped into traffic instead of slitting his wrists.

The forty eight hours in the psych ward, do nothing but make him wish he was dead even more. 

He spends those two nights curled in on himself, planning how he’ll do it. How he’ll do it right, this time.

… 

James gets home and cries while he cleans the dark, dried blood off the bathroom floor. When he stands up he catches his reflection in the destroyed glass of the bathroom mirror. He drinks until he passes out on the couch, and the next day, he skips class and does the same thing. 

… 

The air between them is tense once Alex gets home, they hardly speak at first.

“I’m sorry,” Alex says eventually. James starts crying, Alex thinks he’ll cry at the drop of a hat nowadays. 

“Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry you feel the way you do,” he says. “And I’m sorry I can’t make it better for you.” 

“Nothings going to make anything better for me,” Alex replies. “But I love you, I love you so much.” 

“Are you going to try again? It sounds like you are,” James looks at him with wide, teary eyes. 

“I-“ Alex says. “I don’t want to hurt you.” It’s not a lie. James grabs his hands. 

“Then don’t,” he says. Alex kisses him and says nothing, because he doesn’t want to make any promises he can’t keep. 

That night, as he sleeps under James’ arm he dreams of the grey sky and the steely waves crashing against the beach. He dreams of the deep ocean where no light can reach. 

He wakes up knowing what he’s going to do.

… 

James doesn’t let Alex out of his sight when at all possible, and when it isn’t possible he gets someone else to come over and watch him. James isn’t stupid, he knows if he lets Alex out of his sight he might try and kill himself again. He feels sick thinking of what he’d said that day, “I want to die, I want to die, I want to die,” the ferocity with which he’d said it. 

He feels like he’s just waiting for it to happen again, the threat hanging on a thin string over his head.

“Can we talk?” James asks cautiously one evening.

“About what?” 

“You know what,” James says. Alex sighs. “Are you going to try it again? Just... be honest with me.” Alex takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

“Honestly? Yeah, I’m gonna try it again.” James’ heart plummets. “And it’s gonna be for real this time.” 

“Is there anything I can do to stop you?” James asks. “Because I’ll do anything.”

“Call the hospital, they can’t keep me against my will forever, I’ll find a way eventually,” Alex says. “I know you probably don’t get it, but... I can’t keep living like this.” 

“Then live some other way,” James begs. He feels sick. 

“I don’t know any other way to live,” Alex says. “I don’t know how to be happy.” 

“You’ve been happy before,” James says. 

“Not for a long, long time,” Alex says, smiling sadly. 

“It’s not fair,” James says. “It’s not fair that you have to feel like this.” Alex climbs into his lap and James puts his arms around him, holding him tight. 

“It’s not fair that you had to fall in love with someone who’s doomed.” James starts to cry, this is the end, he knows that, and there’s nothing he can do to stop what’s coming.

They falls asleep holding each other. James wakes up at three in the morning, the bed is empty and cold beside him. He knows Alex is gone. 

He lies back in bed, feeling the weight of the ocean fill him up. Through teary eyes he looks out his bedroom window, he sees no stars, but he knows they’re there. The knowledge isn’t much, but it keeps him breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> this is really sad im sorry


End file.
